Standard disclaimer

A/N: You guys had me worried there for a minute...I know that Sweet Arwen and Sweet Treats were keeping up with me, but until this morning I wasn't sure anyone else out there was awake! :) But now I have more reviews and I'm happy. Not that I wasn't happy before...I thought I was doing this for the fame and glory but I guess I'm really just doing it for fun. SO you have fun too, and don't forget to REVIEW! :) After this chapter, you may really, really want to....heh heh...(rubs hands together evilly)

Coincidence

Old town Pasadena was a lively little place, and extremely quiet that early in the morning. None of the shops had opened yet, and Vincent wasn't much of a window shopper anyway, so they soon grew bored and went back to the hotel. Victoria did not fail to notice that there was a church tower just a few blocks over.

She had told Vincent once that she was a God-fearing woman. Was that true? Had she changed so much in a matter of days? A blush crept up her cheeks when she thought about the previous night...the things Vincent had done to her...the things she'd asked him to do...she looked away, down at her feet. She didn't know what to think of herself. Worse yet, she didn't really know what Vincent thought of her, either.

Funny, though. She never got the feeling that he ever judged her.

They were just crossing the threshold of their room when there was a small, definitive beep coming from Vincent's jacket pocket. He looked mildly surprised, reached down, pulled out the source. It was a pager, small and sleek, glinting silver in the light. He flipped on one of the lamps, turning it over to find a number.

Victoria sat down on the bed, gazing out the window again. She felt very tired, suddenly, and wanted nothing more than to just go to sleep. But the adrenaline started to flow again when she heard him walk over to the small table with the telephone, pick it up and start to dial.

There was a long pause before she heard him say, "It's Vincent."

Silence. Vincent was listening intently to whoever was speaking. She heard him murmur things like, "yes...no...I'm still in L.A." It occurred to her that he was speaking with his employer. The blood started to drain out of her face as she realized she could be sitting in a room where a contract on someone's life was being taken out. Her fingers felt numb, she had been leaning on her wrists wrong. She sat up, shaking them out. She had a lot of nerve now, getting all weirded out.

"Okay," Vincent said, his voice very soft, and he gently replaced the receiver on its cradle. He had his back to her, and for several minutes, he didn't move.

She looked over her shoulder. "Everything okay?" she asked hesitantly.

His head rose up, but he didn't look around. She saw him take a deep breath, give himself a little shake, and then stand up. He walked right over to her, stood in front of her.

"I've just gotten a new job," he said in the sort of low-key tone that made her think something was really wrong and he was just attempting to soften the blow.

"And?"

"And it's on your patient, Marcus Shakespeare."

She stared up at him, jaw going slack. "Well, you didn't take it, did you?"

"I did." Still so calm. She felt her heartbeat accelerate as her anger rose, bringing the blood back to her face.

"Why?"

"Because it's a job."

She stood up, but he didn't give her an inch of space. The area between his body and the bed was just barely enough for her to stand in. "Vincent, you can't take that job, it's---"

"Victoria," he was meeting her eyes, "I told you I don't lie. I'm not lying to you now. If you're worried about your safety, you don't have to. I know you don't know how to reach him."

"That isn't the point," she snapped, taking a step closer to him, not caring about their proximity anymore. Her mind was whirling now, things spinning in her brain that she didn't want to let land, but were crashing into her reason with the speed of a meteorite. She found herself shaking her head, felt dizzy, almost lost her balance, but caught herself. Vincent reached out to hold her steady, her anger flooded what was left of her rationality, and she shoved him away, hard, making him take a step back.

"Don't you think that's too much of a coincidence?" she said, her voice a low growl.

"Yes, I do."

"And you don't believe in coincidences."

"No, I don't."

"So this isn't a coincidence." It snapped into her brain, like a child's set of building blocks, forming a hideous monster. "You...you knew that he was a patient of mine."

Vincent just looked at her.

"That night you came to me...you were injured, but the reason you stayed around so long wasn't because you were recuperating, was it? You hate L.A. You couldn't wait to get out."

"No, I couldn't."

"But you stayed. You stayed because you were waiting for something. The night that those boys came for me, did you got a call then, too?"

He frowned, lightly. "How would you know that?"

"Wild guess."

"Or maybe you're just paranoid."

"So you didn't get the call then...when did you?"

He took a breath. "The first morning, when you were asleep. Before I went out. They told me that they might need me, asked me to stay in L.A. for a few more days. Got me a flight out for later on today."

"So that's why you stayed. Not to protect me."

"No, I was protecting you. I knew you didn't know anything by then, but no one else knew that. I figured that keeping you close was probably a good way to keep track of things."

"What about Allen?" she cried, her throat threatening to close. "Why did he have to die?"

"I didn't kill him," Vincent said. "I suspect Claudia did."

She shook herself. This was unbelievable. "How do you know that?" she asked softly.

"I only figured it out this morning," Vincent said. "She probably went to Allen's house to see if you might be there. When she saw he was alone, she shot him. Then when we showed up, she followed us back, waited for an opportunity. She probably paid some poor desperate druggie to take that shotgun and shoot down our door, because by then she knew I was with you. She didn't want to take the chance that if we got into it, I would win. So she just came for information, tried to make it look like we're all on the same side."

"So Claudia is after Shakespeare, too? If she is, then you are on the same side."

Vincent shrugged. "If she is. I still don't know what she has to do with all of this, exactly, but I'm certainly not going to rely on any assumptions. Not when it comes to her."

"So what now? You're taking that job, what happens next?"

"I go to my drop point, get my work-up, and we go see Mr. Shakespeare."

"We? I'm not going with you."

"I'm afraid you are, Victoria. I still need you."

"As a hostage," she said, and from the faintest flicker of guilt she saw in his dark eyes, she knew it was true. "Forget it, Vincent."

He reached out, one hand resting gently on her shoulder, pulling her close. He was smiling at her in his innocent, sweet way. "Come on, Victoria," he said, "we're still in this together. It's because of that man that your ex-husband is dead. Don't you want a little revenge?"

"You said revenge was a bad idea," she hissed.

"Did I?" His hand slid down her back, bringing her even closer. She stiffened.

"Yeah." She reached up, pushed away. "You are a soulless bastard, aren't you?"

The smile faded in a wink of his eye. "What?"

"You used me. All this time, you used me!" She pushed harder, getting more distance between them. When the back of her knees hit the bed she made her way around it, keeping her eye on Vincent, suddenly terrified and infuriated by him. "It was all a game for you, wasn't it?"

"I told you, Victoria," he said, his countenance slowly becoming more and more dangerous as he started to prowl after her, "I don't lie."

"No, what you do is worse. You totally manipulate. You get into people's heads, and use whatever you find there. That's your scheme, isn't it? Your trick. Make them empathize with you, make them think they're in it with you. That's how you play them."

Empowered by the slow, crumbling wall of his confidence, she continued, her voice getting louder, angrier by the second. She searched for the worst thing she could say, found the only weapon she had within her immediate reach.

"But Max had you figured out, didn't he? He knew you were empty inside, that you really knew nothing about anything, it was all just an act. And now I see it, too. You're just a heartless, soulless killer. That's it. There's nothing else to you except your workups and your expensive suit." She turned away, disgusted.

But it wasn't enough. Maybe if she'd slapped him, like her fingers itched to do, it might have stopped what came next. His hand clamped down around her wrist, yanking her back, spinning her around until her back made contact with the wall, not painfully but sharp enough to startle her into raising up her head. Then his mouth descended on her, no mercy this time, his body pressing her against the rough fabric of the wallpaper, lips assaulting hers, his hands holding her in place so she couldn't get away, could barely struggle. At first the kiss was rough, intended only to assault and subdue her, and the second she felt his tongue touch hers, she wondered if he was going to shove it down her throat, just to make her gag. But just as quickly, the force was relented and he was gentle, caressing her mouth, finding the sensitive parts she had never known existed. He drew her tongue into his mouth, sucked on it, and she heard a low groan way in the back of his throat.

When he stopped, she found she couldn't breathe properly. She was panting; the pressure of him holding her against the wall was the only thing keeping her upright.

She blinked several times, trying to collect herself. He started on her neck and shoulders then, the roughness of his face driving her further away from reality. She struggled, but he held fast, knowing by now that she liked to struggle, it was part of her act, part of her secret. She focused on clearing her head, getting her mouth to work properly, and finally found the right words.

"You really missed your calling, Vincent. You should have been an actor."

He pulled away, roughly, still holding her in place, glaring into her eyes. "All this time, and you still don't know me at all," he spat.

"I know you," she returned, as if absorbing all his arrogance and confidence with their bodily contact. "There isn't anything to know." She spat the words, almost literally spat in his face.

For a moment, he went totally blank, and then he exploded. His face came together, a horrible mask that only mirrored her own rage, and he yanked her away from the wall, practically throwing her onto the bed. She rolled, visions of all kinds of horrid things spinning through her head, and she landed on the other side, barely getting her feet under her.

"You think I put my neck out for anyone!" he howled at her, his voice high, screeching, tearing through her head like a pair of talons. "I. DO. MY. JOB."

"Your job, YOUR JOB, shove your job up your ass!" she screamed at him, feeding from the situation instead of being drained by it, which was probably more like her to do. But she was so hurt, so incredibly, deeply wounded by the fact that Vincent had played her that she no longer cared about being dead or alive.

He leapt up onto the bed, covering half the distance between them. She flung back into the corner, unwilling to let him get close. She reached for the lamp, ripped it from the wall and flung it at him. He caught it easily, then hurled it across the room, where it shattered against the far wall.

"DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND ANYTHING!" he screamed. "HOW FUCKING STUPID CAN YOU BE?!?"

She darted around the bed, and he lost his balance temporarily on the mattress in an effort to snatch after her, sliding before he could get onto the floor and chase after her.

She ran down the hallway, hit the stairs and jumped down half the flights, running the rest. She found a back exit and hurled her way through it. She was half-way across a back alley when a sound like thunder exploded beside her, sending a small spray of gravel up against the left side of her body.

She stopped, knowing that sound. Vincent's gun. She turned slowly, telling herself it didn't matter. He couldn't do anything to hurt her, anymore. If she was dead, so be it. Maybe God would let her apologize to Allen before sending her straight to hell.

He was walking up to her, his gun raised. When there was only about ten feet of space between them, he stopped. "You're not going anywhere, Victoria," he said, his voice much calmer than before, although not completely his old smooth self yet.

"I'm not going with you," she said.

"You are," he said. "You don't have a choice."

She looked up. It was daylight. The man had fired a gun in daylight in the middle of Pasadena's Old Town. Where was everybody? It wasn't like they were in South Central L.A., where gunfire was part of the ambiance. She blinked, her adrenaline starting to clear, her brain starting to unravel.

"Are you going to shoot me, Vincent?" she asked, her voice more level.

He stepped closer, almost close enough to reach out. "Victoria, don't make me do something I'll regret. I liked Daniel, too. And I shot him."

To illustrate his point, he cocked his gun. She nodded, slumping her shoulders. Suddenly the urge to die wasn't so strong. Maybe it had been the thought about hell. She looked up, saw the church tower. No, it wasn't her time to die yet.

"Come on," he said, finally getting the nerve to reach out and take her arm. He put his gun away. "We're going to the drop."

Numbly, she let him drag her down the alley and into a cab. She didn't pay attention to where they were going, didn't even bother to look at anything except her feet in the bottom of the cab.

"Victoria?" he said, a little bit later. When she didn't look up, he said it again. "Victoria?"

She looked up at him, her expression not changing.

He stared at her, expecting something. She could tell by the raise of his eyebrows.

"Am I your property now?" she said, her voice low, spiteful.

"My property?"

"Like Max," she bit out.

He stared at her a moment, letting her words sink in. Then, abruptly, he laughed, as if she'd made a joke. "No, Victoria, you aren't like Max," he said, adding a shake of his head and tossing her a coy smile.

"What's going to happen to me?"

He shrugged. "The day is still young. Could be anything. Over there, Albert," he said to the cabbie. She hadn't even noticed that he'd learned the cabbie's name. "On the right."

The driver pulled up, Vincent paid him, and he pulled Victoria out of the cab with him.

A/N: Sorry, I am particularly proud of that last chapter...it was a lot of fun to write Vincent totally flipping out and Victoria not being an utter wimp about it. Anyway, on to the replies:

Sweet Treats: Glad you were okay with the nakeness stuff. Chapter 9 is a little
more icky, but you'll cope. And yes, I really am a teacher. Second graders. Yeah,
I'm immature, I admit, that's why I get along with little kids so well. What, no comments
about Claudia? I thought she was worthy of "what a bitch," or something
like that. LOL

Sweet Arwen: Yes, the movie was just as good as before...only it's even better if you just
get to watch Vincent the whole time. Heh heh. It inspired a little bit at the end of chapter
9, which if you're good, and review, you'll get to read tomorrow. Heh.

CrazyCat1: Okay, I'll forgive you this time...yes, I teach little second graders. I love my
job but the beginning of the year is very stressful and I only have until Monday to enjoy
the rest of my summer and get this fanfic done. SIGH I could write during the school year but
once I get started doing all my teacher-stuff I know I won't have the energy, and if I do, it had
better be good writing or I'm going to be really mad at myself. Yeah, Claudia is like Victoria's
total opposite, but she's supposed to be that way. Don't worry, you havent' seen the last of her...
not for a LONG time.

Chips Ahoy: Every time I see your screen name I crave cookies. I DON"T NEED COOKIES! OH well, guess
that never stopped me before. Anyhoo, see, cliffhanger solved? YEs, I got it. Heh. That's what a friend
of mine always says when someone makes a silly joke that's actually funny. It deserves a "heh." So there's
yours. :) SO I guess I'll hear from you again after another three chapters? :) lol jk

Warm MIttens: WHere did you go, girl? I didn't traumatize you too much, did I? Get back on the
review board or email me and let me know what you think of these last two chapters, K?

Same to you, PAR! :)

Okay, gotta go solve the plot snag in chapter 11. I hit a big bump when I was writing last night. I made
the mistake of trying to write too much after seeing the movie and I totally ran out of steam. I hit the
big conflict-resolution part of the plot and then...NOTHING. So I think I've got it figured out now. I'll let
you judge. Later, all!